Many in PPR houses have difficulty paying rentals
Published on: Thursday, April 16, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Many residents in People's Housing Project (PPR) houses have difficulties paying their rentals with some having arrears dating back to years ago."The Local Government and Housing Ministry has plans to sell these houses to the residents in the future but even now they have trouble paying the RM100 plus rent. If they are made to buy these houses, then they will have to fork out more than that, probably between RM400 and RM500 a month," said Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Mohd Noor.Hajiji said this when replying to a supplementary question by Klias Assemblyman Datuk Lajim Ukin during the question and answer session at the State Assembly sitting, here, Wednesday.
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He, however, agreed that it was a good suggestion to sell the houses to those who can afford to pay as some may be interested to own the houses rather than renting the units for life."Anyway, from our research, many residents are also happy to rent because when they rent, they only pay RM100 plus and this will not burden them and they can live in the house until they can find their own place."So we will study this further and see how we can put this suggestion into reality, by selling some of the units to those who want and can afford them," he said.Earlier, Hajiji told Sebatik Assemblyman Datuk Abd Muis Picho that his ministry had reached an agreement with the Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) to build 10,000 units of affordable homes with prices being not more than RM250,000.
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Other than that, he said, the Federal government also played its roles by implementing the MyHome Housing Programme Scheme where RM30,000 subsidy is given to eligible homebuyers."I am pleased to announce that Sabah had received approval to build three MyHome projects comprising 2,084 home units under the scheme," he said.
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Hajiji also said the Federal government had approved 3,000 units of houses under PPR to be implemented this year and 1,206 units of Civil Servants 1Malaysia Housing (PPA1M) homes in Kinarut and 112 units in Sandakan. The Rural and Regional Development Ministry and Sabah Rural Development Ministry through district offices have built 1,000 units of houses under the Housing Assistance Programme (PBR) in Sabah.Housing and Urban Development Board, through house loans for low-income earners scheme, had also built 1,698 units of houses statewide.Meanwhile, Community Development and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Jainab Ahmad told Lajim that the majority of homeless people that roam Kota Kinabalu have families to take care of them.During an operation conducted on March 12 this year, only six out of 29 people rounded up during the operation were detained for 30 days."The rest of them were bailed out by their respective families. So this is the problem because other than action from the government, their families also should take the responsibility to make sure they stay home."Some of these homeless people are illegal immigrants and for this problem, I have talked to my committee which also includes officers from the Immigration Department and we have some suggestions."However, these are still under discussions and we will only bring our conclusions to the technical committee to be brought to another meeting which will be chaired by the Infrastructure Development Minister," she said.Jainab said the issue of homeless people, which has been gaining more attention lately, must be curbed as their presence could tarnish the image and reputation of Kota Kinabalu.At the moment, she said, there are no special laws to prevent or protect homeless cases and if the homeless were caught begging, the Welfare Department will take action under the Destitute Persons Act 1977 which had been extended to Sabah on March 26, 2012.The Act is used to prevent begging and implement a protection and rehabilitation programme through the Desa Bina Diri institute.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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